It's confirmed: Apple wants you to buy smartphone, tablet and computer

Apple yesterday unveiled the next version of its operating system for Mac computers at the annual WWDC 2014 conference for developers. In a keynote that spanned two hours, company executives took to the stage to demonstrate multiple enhancements to the OS X operating system and iOS platform, as well as a number of future-focused developments like a new programming language, access to large number of new API, or Application Programming Interfaces, and the opening up of its cloud services.

Of particular interest are features that improve the experience of a user who owns both an iOS device and an OS X desktop or laptop. For example, Airdrop has been improved to quickly send images and other objects between iOS and OS X. Touted under a new feature suite dubbed 'Continuity,' this includes 'Handoff' in which mobile phone conversations and messages can be wirelessly--and swiftly--handed off between smartphone and PC.

In contrast to many Android smartphones with large displays or tablets armed with call capabilities, Apple ( NASDAQ: AAPL) had always drawn a clear distinction between the iPhone and iPad. While Android devices have blurred the line between the smartphone and tablet, Apple has made certain that this demarcation stays crystal clear by keeping the iPhone display small and disabling traditional phone capabilities, such as voice calls, from the iPad.

And when it comes to the tablet and the traditional PC, even Microsoft ( NASDAQ: MSFT) had conceded that the tablet may be a viable form factor for business productivity with its multiple iterations of increasingly powerful Surface tablets. Indeed, Microsoft just two weeks ago launched the Surface Pro 3 tablet, a device that sports specifications better than quite a few laptops out there.

Against a backdrop where the PC's imminent death had been proclaimed loudly and repeatedly, and the fact that even Mac sales have been cannibalized to a certain extent by the iPad, perhaps the greatest irony here is that Apple is not at all ready to write-off the non-tablet computing environment. If anything, the new Continuity features in OS X Yosemite are designed for workers where the desktop computing environment is simply indispensable.

So yes, Apple does want to sell you not just an iPhone and an iPad, but a Mac computer, too. - Paul Mah (Twitter @paulmah)

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